Two US Startups Win Big At The Silicon Dragon NY Pitch And Go To Beijing Next For Step 2

It has been tough selecting two winners from the 19 entrepreneurs who pitched last week at Silicon Dragon’s pitch last week in New York City.

There were the co-founders Bao Lei and Ying Shen who pitched their startup Xingzhi, which uses big data and machine learning to match Chinese students who wish to study abroad with U.S. universities.

There was Sally Wang, founder of Docflight, which connects Chinese patients with doctors in the U.S. for a virtual consultation and even confirmed diagnosis and treatment options.

There was Matt Wilkerson, founder of Paragon One, a career coaching and matching service for international students to get jobs at American and multinational companies.

See the full list of entrepreneurs who presented their startups at Silicon Dragon Pitch NY 2016.

All 19 contestants were judged on five factors by Silicon Dragon’s pitch judges: Brian Cohen of NY Angels and Jim Robinson of RRE Ventures. The five factors were: team, product innovation, market opportunity, business model (traction and milestones), competitive advantage plus an overall impression of the pitch.

After some 90 minutes of pitching at the event held at Nasdaq headquarters in New York City, the tension was high. Everyone wanted to know who would be awarded the winning pitch, who would get to go to Beijing to compete internationally in a program organized by the Overseas Talent Entrepreneur Center to receive funding, free space and startup advice. None of them had ever raised more than seed financing or money from friends and family.

Silicon Dragon has now analyzed the judges scores, weighed all the factors, and is glad to present our two winners. They are:

In the founder’s own words, here’s a description of their businesses that tells the market opportunity and challenge / market entry path:

Panda Corner is an interactive learning platform that uses song to teach language (English & Chinese) and music. Music lessons have been shown to increase children’s EQ and IQ. Many families around the world do not have access to high quality music and language education, however. Panda Corner’s team of leading musicians, scholars, and language specialists aims to create an affordable, optimized, multi-dimensional music/language platform to empower the next generation.

BioCellection: Plastic pollution is a global crisis that threatens the lives of wildlife and the food safety for 4 billion people. BioCellection ‘up-cycles’ unrecyclable plastic waste into a valuable compound for textiles using genetically engineered bacteria. This invention has the potential to clean plastic pollution around the world, disrupt the textiles industry, and grow into a $100 million business in 5 years. Our vision is to turn a global crisis into an even greater opportunity.

Onward and upward! Congratulations to all the presenters, who each did a terrific job.